The European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services (AEPOC) just announced that a major pirate TV operation that provided almost 1,400 clients in Cyprus and other parts of Europe with illegal subscriptions to BSkyB, Nova, and BFBS has just been shut down. The operation ran from October 2010 to May 2011 and generated an income of €100,000.
Using a peer-to-peer (P2P) mechanism, which results in the legitimate, albeit abused, care plus decoder set-up across the internet, the pirate TV viewers were actually sharing a single card with a legitimate subscriber. The heads of the operation were able to do this by establishing a network of five servers that distributed the access codes from the legitimate cards to their clients' P2P systems. It is currently the largest 'card-sharing' pirate operations AEPOC has uncovered. The agency said that every pirate operation leaves a trace, and in this case it was the payment receipts issued to clients of the card-sharing network.
“AEPOC and its members are committed to follow each incident and bring down pirates. Trustful collaboration with the police helps to achieve anti-piracy results in an increasingly short time frame.” said Michael Barley, AEPOC's vice president. “Nevertheless,” he continued “the EU legislative framework needs to evolve to build an even bigger deterrent to prevent audio-visual piracy in the first place.”
Though AEPOC is focusing on bringing the heads of the pirate operation to justice, it is also considering carrying out legal action against the 1,400 customers.
Using a peer-to-peer (P2P) mechanism, which results in the legitimate, albeit abused, care plus decoder set-up across the internet, the pirate TV viewers were actually sharing a single card with a legitimate subscriber. The heads of the operation were able to do this by establishing a network of five servers that distributed the access codes from the legitimate cards to their clients' P2P systems. It is currently the largest 'card-sharing' pirate operations AEPOC has uncovered. The agency said that every pirate operation leaves a trace, and in this case it was the payment receipts issued to clients of the card-sharing network.
“AEPOC and its members are committed to follow each incident and bring down pirates. Trustful collaboration with the police helps to achieve anti-piracy results in an increasingly short time frame.” said Michael Barley, AEPOC's vice president. “Nevertheless,” he continued “the EU legislative framework needs to evolve to build an even bigger deterrent to prevent audio-visual piracy in the first place.”
Though AEPOC is focusing on bringing the heads of the pirate operation to justice, it is also considering carrying out legal action against the 1,400 customers.
